This is a public-interest archive. Personal data is pseudonymized and retained under GDPR Article 89.

Re: Giant Whitefly

>Ordinary whitefly seem to come when aplant is water stressed.
>A friend uses sprays of seaweed fertiliser which is amazingly helpful
>
That's an interesting idea, Michael.  The whitefly we are talking about is
like nothing you can imagine.  These flies came up from Mexico (I think)
last year.  They are huge flies (relatively speaking), about 10x as large
as a regular whitefly.  They form colonies on the undersides of leaves,
mostly smooth green leaved plants.  For example, last year, they wiped out
many many hibiscus.  I find them mostly on mulberry leaves, citrus, pepper
plants -- all leaves with very smooth surfaces.  I have never seen them on
a leaf with a fuzzy or hairy underside.

These flies sip sap, as you might imagine, and in the process, they produce
these long, white filaments that look like white spun sugar -- here we call
it "cotton candy."  The filaments fall and cover any plant beneath the
infected one and wherever they are, they attract black soot.  So if the
whiteflies don't kill the plant, the soot eventually does.

There are no natural predators here, so the University of California has
been experimenting with predatory wasps and expected about 40% control by
this summer (if I recall correctly).

Bottom line is, these are terrible nusiances and all we can do is hose them
and wait.

Guard against them in Ozland.  You wouldn't like them!

Nan

Nan Sterman, Master Composter in residency
San Diego County, California
Sunset zone 24, USDA zone 10b or 11
Other Mailing lists | Author Index | Date Index | Subject Index | Thread Index